Maverick

Bret and Bart Maverick (and in later seasons, their English cousin, Beau) are well dressed gamblers who migrate from town to town always looking for a good game. Poker (5 card draw) is their favorite but they've been known to play such odd card games as Three-toed Sloth on occasion. The show would occasionally feature both or all three Mavericks, but usually would rotate the central character from week to week.

Seasons:

Episodes:

1War of the Silver Kings

We first glimpse Bret unshaven & dirty, lugging a rifle, trying to register at a classy hotel. Using the $1000 bill pinned inside his jacket, and adding some dollar-size strips cut from a newspaper, Bret cadges a room via a bulging envelope for the guest safe. Changing into his gambler's duds for a poker game including the company town's silver baron Phineas King, Bret (James Garner) wins - and only Bret hints that King is a card cheat. King's casino manager, Big Mike McComb has Bret beaten, but won't have him killed. Big Mike (screenwriter/ex-con Leo Gordon) becomes a memorable recurring character in the series. After King still takes a crack at having Bret iced, Bret runs an ad in King's paper: "King did NOT try to kill me - today. See this space tomorrow !" Directed by one of the best Western specialists, Budd Boetticher.

2Point Blank

Kicked out of one town, jailed for running a con in the next, Bret's luck turns when a sultry waitress eases him out of stir to work as a spotter in a casino. A cattle drive's heading to Bent Fork, so the casino's soon jammed with drunken cowpokes raring to cheat at cards and start shooting. Bret's sharp benefactor Molly proves an alluring mystery: why's she staying in the hottest, driest town in the West, since she has two quick-tempered suitors already, the straight-arrow sheriff and a bank clerk?

3According to Hoyle

A Southern belle targets Bret and cleans him out at poker. Bret gets staked to switch to a different paddle-wheeler, so she'll follow, and plenty spectators will too. Different riverboat, same result. Samantha Crawford explains that Bret took her father for $50,000 - who embezzled to cover his losses and is now in prison. Samantha's raising money to make restitution, but she's still short, and Bret's broke again. As Pappy said "man's the only animal that can get skinned more than once," so Bret proposes they combine forces.

4Ghost Rider

Bret is robbed by The Kid and trails him to a poker game, but The Kid's just been killed. As the winners rake in The Kid's money, they ask newcomer Bret if The Kid (Edd Byrnes, Kookie on "77 Sunset Strip") was a friend. "No but the money was," Bret sighs. Bret spies an entrancing widow sobbing on a bench, gives her a ride, but she vanishes in the chilly dark, wearing the coat containing the remainder of Bart's money. White Rock's townspeople ridicule Bret's tale, because she died weeks before (June 1872). When the local undertaker takes a gunshot at him, Bret's determined to stay in town to investigate, because the undertaker was the specter's fiancé.

5The Long Hunt

Fleeing sore losers, Bret is saved from death by stage robber Lefty Dolan who obligates Bret with a dying wish - free the man wrongly convicted in another heist, instead of Lefty. Lefty lives long enough to clue in Bret to tracking 2 other menacing gang members, Rex and Whitey. When Bret cons his way into prison to talk to the innocent prisoner Jed, Bret's pledged to an even stranger promise - don't tell Jed's wife there's any hope of saving him. Citizen Kane-style cinematography, in the first of many Maverick episodes directed or written by Doug Heyes.

6Stage West

Bret comes to the assistance of a Eastern woman who came west when she learns of her husband's gold strike. A ruthless family of ranchers have killed her husband, though, and try to convince the young lady that they are her late husband's partners.

7Relic of Fort Tejon

Bret wins a "full-blooded Arabian mount" in a poker game, but soon discovers he's been conned - the Arabian mount turns out to be an overly-affectionate camel. While fleeing the dromedary, Bret stumbled into a small town and runs into an old flame who's engaged to the town's mayor. Bret soon learns that the mayor runs a crooked gambling hall and isn't above shooting card players when they stumble onto his cheating ways.

8Hostage

Intros brother Bart (Jack Kelly) teaming with Bret to board a riverboat's maiden voyage, sold out to Creole aristocrats with gambling fever. To crash the private cruise, the Mavericks intro themselves to the ship's French owner, whose lovely daughter Yvette is shanghaied right after the Mavericks are rebuffed. The brothers pursue the kidnappers, hoping to win the jeune fille, an invitation, and a reward. At the New Orleans cabaret where the Mavericks meet Yvette, pop singer Don Durant ("Johnny Ringo") croons "Get Along Home Cindy" to her. Durant was a runner-up for the role of Bart.

9Stampede

Bret & new character Dandy Jim join a gold rush to even a score with Cadiz, a crooked gambler who cleaned them out. Cadiz's brawler Battling Krueger is taking on all comers, and en route Bret crashes into a possible challenger, eco-warrior/mountain man Noah, complete with a pet skunk.

10The Jeweled Gun

Bart doesn't like being employed at all, but accompanying a beautiful, moneyed widow on a stagecoach apparently wasn't ruled out by Pappy. Though they are traveling North from Old Santa Fe through badlands, the coach's heating up. The closer they get to Laramie, the more Bart wants to combine business & pleasure. Are those danger signs he's ignoring from not-so-demure Daisy? Is protecting her making Bart love-blind and vulnerable ? Which is the real danger: varmints he's been hired to protect her against - or her jeweled gun?

11The Wrecker

Bret Maverick wins the right to join a ring of shipwreck salvagers, but he is soon in debt up to his neck when he engages in a spirited bidding contest, spending $21,000 for a ship whose cargo is apparently only worth half that. Brother Bart soon finds out why their unknown rival was willing to bid so high - in addition to a bales of silk and rice, the wreck's hold is full of unlawful opium.

12The Quick and the Dead

Maverick is looking for the men who paid him with counterfeit money during a poker game and when he finds them to clear his name with a marshal who is looking for him. His investigation leads him to a town where he takes a job as a dealer in a saloon. Not only does he find information regarding the men but also gets involved with a feud between one of the men and Doc Holliday.

16Rage for Vengeance

12 Jan 1958

17Rope of Cards

19 Jan 1958

18Diamond in the Rough

A San Francisco tycoon takes a dislike to Bart and has him beaten, robbed and thrown on board a sailing ship bound for New Orleans. Maverick vows revenge and with the help of a pair of charming, but broke, French countesses, returns to the City on the Bay to extract the $17,000 that was stolen from him. Maverick discovers that his nemesis is plotting a multi-million scam by fleecing his fellow millionaires by selling stock in a phony diamond field and is determined to protect his friends and recover his money at the same time.

19Day of Reckoning

When a cowhand accuses Maverick of cheating at cards, the local marshal intercedes, but the blow that knocked the young man wound up killing him. When the cowhand's trail boss and ramrod gang up on the marshal and kill him, the town's printer publishes an angry broadside accusing the ranchers of murder, which causes the trail hands to threaten to destroy the town. The local businessman must decide whether to band together or turn the printer over to the angry cowboys.

20The Savage Hills

A beautiful con woman convinces Bart that a fellow hotel guest is really the leader of a counterfeit ring in possession of the plates to print the phony money. After Bret helps steal the plates, he learns that the gangster is really a Secret Service agent and the two men join forces to reclaim the plates before they're put to criminal use.

21Trail West to Fury

Trapped by a flood with Dandy Jim Buckley, the Maverick brothers while away the time by explaining why they can't return to Texas. Soon after the Civil War, the boys return home and discover that the town's unscrupulous storekeeper is plotting to grab enough land in three counties to form a 5000 square mile ranch. When the Mavericks agree to lead a cattle drive for the storekeeper's principal rival, he frames them for murder. Now Bret must lead the herd across Comanche territory to Fort Adobe with the army in pursuit, while Bart searches for the only witness to the shootout.

22The Burning Sky

Travelling across the Arizona desert, the stagecoach conveying Bart Maverick and his companions is attacked by what appear to be Apache Indians. The passengers manage to reach the ruins of an adobe house and soon discover that the men besieging them are actually Mexican bandits who want something that one of the passengers possesses. As the broiling heat takes its toll, Bret attempts to discover which one of his fellow wayfarers is protecting a secret worth fighting, and possibly dying, for.

23The Seventh Hand

Samantha Crawford invites five of the wealthiest and most influential poker players in the west to a game and stakes Bret to $20,000 to compete in the contest. After the game is robbed of more than $100,000 by two gunmen, Bret is accused of complicity and discovers that Samantha received the money she gave Bret from a shady third party. Their reputations at stake Bret and Samantha pursue the crooks into Sioux territory in the Black Hills in order to recover the money.

24Plunder of Paradise

Bart Maverick and Big Mike McComb are invited to a remote Mexican fishing village to help locate and remove buried treasure from under the nose of the authorities. When they arrive, the man who asked for their help has disappeared and in his place they find a marooned saloon singer, a woman claiming to be the missing man's wife and a gang of Mexican bandits who dog their every step.

25Black Fire

Crusty old General Eakins summons all his living relatives to his ranch to assess who'll inherit his fortune. Bret Maverick fills in for obnoxious ne'er-do-well nephew Homer Eakins, a snooty painter, while Eakins pretends to be Maverick. The General takes a liking to the "new, improved" Homer Eakins, who the General hasn't seen since Homer was a tyke. Then the relatives start being killed, one by one...

26Burial Ground of the Gods

Bart trails a thief to the Wyoming badlands where the man is leading a woman and her fiancé to where he claims to have seen her supposedly dead husband. In order to regain his money, Bart must join the party and make sure they can return safely to Denver after crossing sacred Sioux Indian territory.

27Seed of Deception

Bret and Bart ride into a small Arizona town and are mistaken for Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday despite their protestations to the contrary. Things start to look bad for the Mavericks when an outlaw gang ride into town and the local sheriff convinces the crooks that the two gamblers are the famous lawmen. The gunsels aren't about to let two men to get in their way of their planned bank robbery no matter what their reputation.

1The Day They Hanged Bret Maverick

21 Sep 1958

2Lonesome Reunion

Bret, having lost all his money playing poker, agrees to help a woman spirit valuable mining claims away from a man who is pursuing her for a small fee. Maverick soon learns that the hat box he is protecting contains nothing but a hat, and the man pursuing the woman is after the proceeds from a bank robbery (a year before) and the man who recently escaped from prison knows where it was buried. Bret trails the men to the town of Lonesome, Colorado, where is he is falsely arrested by a female deputy sheriff for the murder of one of the bank robbers. Maverick attempts to break out of jail before the remaining crook can dig up the loot and make a clean getaway.

3Alias Bart Maverick

Bart & Gentleman Jack's testy partnership snaps when Jack guns down Little Jeb of the Plummer Gang, after Bart & Jack were run out of the previous town for gambling. Bad loser Jeb gave the duplicitous Gentleman 3 steps to get to the saloon door, mister, but his gang is not so generous, forcing Jack and blonde saloon dancer Cindy Lou Brown to flee through Sioux Territory. Jack still had time to get Bart jailed as Jack's alias Sir Stratford Avon, so Bart wants in on the chase too.

4The Belcastle Brand

Maverick and a hunting expedition of headstrong Englishmen are robbed by an outlaw gang and abandoned without food and water in the middle of the desert. Maverick convinces his party, by threat and force of argument, that their only hope of survival is to follow the gang across the desert waste to their hideout and take back their horses and provisions by force.

5High Card Hangs

19 Oct 1958

6Escape to Tampico

26 Oct 1958

7The Judas Mask

Bart's about to go into the casino business with a shady partner when his twenty thousand contribution is stolen by a beautiful Norweigan dance hall girl. Bart's partner agrees to put up $10,000 to hold their option open for three days and Bart must retrieve his cash from the woman before she disappears into Mexico.

8The Jail at Junction Flats

Dandy Jim convinces Bret to partner with him to buy horses for cavalry remounts and Bret learns too late it's just another of Jim's swindles. Worse, Jim steals all Bret's money and leaves him tied up in the wilderness. Bret soon tracks Dandy Jim to a Wyoming town with a long memory - when a notorious outlaw broke out of jail eight years earlier, the town fathers determined to build an escape-proof jail. Now Dandy Jim's behind bars for a crime he didn't commit - for a change - and he refuses to tell Bret where he's hid the money he stole from the gambler unless he breaks him out of jail. Time's short because a lynch mob is beginning to form.

9The Thirty-Ninth Star

The title to this episode is a reference to North Dakota which was admitted to the Union as the 39th state on November 2, 1889. The plot of this episode indirectly does revolve around North Dakota being admitted to the Union as the 39th state, or whatever state. The action takes place in this territory. Mrs. Janet Kilmer is a lady who is interested in something Bart allegedly has in a briefcase he is alleged and/or believed to have stolen. The US Judge and US Marshall also believe that he has what is supposed to be in the briefcase. Others in the territory do not want the contents disclosed as it will implicate them in various nefarious activities. The try to take care of Bart by working him over, etc. until he sees what is in the briefcase and why it has something of interest to those concerned with themselves as well as those concerned with the territory and its admission to the United States.

10Shady Deal at Sunny Acres

Bret is picked clean & stranded in Sunny Acres by the burg's arrogant banker, so he puts together an M Team of con artists to take down & embarrass the handle-barred buzzard in Denver, while Bret sits whittling & rocking in a chair on a shady Sunny Acres porch, poor-mouthing all by-passers that he's "just working on" a plan. The small-town banker is way out of his league in silver-rich Denver with seductive Sam Crawford, intimidating Big Mike, slicksters Gentleman Jack & Dandy Jim etc. as Maverick's operatives in this classic episode.

11Island in the Swamp

Bret's confined to a small isle settled by close-mouthed English immigrants who fear he's a spy or government agent. Bret, totally trussed up in a dinghy, floated up to their isolated dock, where a fisher-woman frees him. Bret, gambling on a Mississippi river boat, was KOed, then set adrift in the lifeboat. The isle's Mississippi Queen Ladybird is under duress too. What are the Brits hiding and why was Bret castaway?

12Prey of the Cat

07 Dec 1958

14Holiday at Hollow Rock

28 Dec 1958

15Game of Chance

04 Jan 1959

16Gun-Shy

The nominal plot concerns Bret Maverick's attempt to find buried Confederate treasure in Ellwood, Kansas. In reality, the episode is Maverick's parody of Gunsmoke. U.S. Marshal Mort Dooley keeps running Maverick out of town and is outfoxed as Maverick keeps returning. The Marshal, we're told, owns 37.5 percent of the Weeping Willow saloon run by Miss Amy (who owns 25 percent). Other owners include deputy Clyde (17.5 percent) and Doc Stucke (17.5 percent). Dooley faces off against Maverick in a scene shot similar to the opening credits of Gunsmoke. Luckily, Maverick is out of range of the Marshal's bullets.

17Two Beggars on Horseback

Bart and Bret both toss certified $10,000 drafts into a poker game, but are told that the exchange company has just gone under. For 10 % of the drafts, a woman confides to each of the brothers separately, that the Deadwood office of the company doesn't yet know it's closing. But they'll have to race through "Indian country" to get to Deadwood ahead of a company official on his way to close the office.

18The Rivals

25 Jan 1959

19Duel at Sundown

Bret Maverick is on his way to a high stakes poker game, when an injured friend with a hidden agenda, begs him to visit. After Bret arrives, the friend's beautiful daughter draws Bret into a plot of her own. Both plots revolve around cold-blooded Red Hartigan (a lanky, young

20Yellow River

08 Feb 1959

21The Saga of Waco Williams

Bret rides into Bent City with Waco Williams, a man he encountered out on the trail. Waco, while not seeking a fight, won't run away from one, either. As a result, Waco's life is threatened more than once. This causes Bret much anxiety, because he has his own reasons for keeping Waco alive.

22Brasada Spur

22 Feb 1959

23Passage to Fort Doom

Bart Maverick, in need of money, signs on as a guide on a wagon train. He knows one woman on the wagon train and she's hiding a secret. Another woman on the wagon train is plotting to kill her husband but she's having second thoughts. When the wagon train arrives at its destination, the biggest threat of all awaits.

24Two Tickets to Ten Strike

15 Mar 1959

25Betrayal

During a stagecoach robbery, Bart realizes that one of the female passengers recognizes the voice of a masked bandit. Hoping to recover his lost funds as well as obtain a reward, Bart stays close to the passenger. But she soon shows herself to be treacherous, not just in matters of money but in matters of love.

26The Strange Journey of Jenny Hill

29 Mar 1959

1Pappy

Bret and Bart travel to Louisiana when they find out their Pappy is engaged to an 18-year-old girl. Bart is posing as "Dandy Jim" Buckley, the nemesis of the Mavericks. The girl's father wants Pappy to be killed in a duel -- but only after the engagement is announced.

2Royal Four Flush

Bart wedges himself between a scam & a silver baron, to collect a card debt from welsher & conman Capt. Fitzgerald. Central to the dragoon is Countess de la Fontaine, engaged to the mining magnate Placer Jack, and she's far from the plain/fat/50, the Irish rogue describes her as to brush Bart off. Jack's protective children become spykids - because they're equally suspicious of Bart, Fitzgerald and the Countess.

3The Sheriff of Duck 'n' Shoot

Bret gets blackmailed into serving a six-month terms as sheriff of Duck 'N Shoot, a wild town that chews up sheriffs. Bret's style is unconventional but, to his chagrin, effective. However, he runs afoul of a larcenous woman and ends up behind the bars of his own jail. Brother Bart arrives to help him out -- for a price.

4You Can't Beat the Percentage

04 Oct 1959

5The Cats of Paradise

Bret gets involved by financing Modesty Blaine's plan to sell cats to a mining town to control the rat population. But when she leaves him holding an empty bag, Bret must face the wrath of a jealous but superstitious sheriff and a hired killer willing to put cash and duty ahead of friendship.

6A Tale of Three Cities

Being cleaned out by a female bandit, then kicked out of Gold Flats for beating its mayor at poker, forces Bart to nearby town Friendly where pretending to be a reformed sinner at least cadges a meal as a guest lecturer at a ladies' social. The comely thief is in the audience, but will Bart turn her in, or do a far, far better thing than he's ever done before?

7Full House

Bret, fearless mastermind of super-villain gang Billy the Kid, Belle Starr, Cole Younger etc. ? Mistaken for the mysterious dandy, Foxy the Brain, Bret must whip out a fool-proof heist blueprint for this Axis of Evil summit of the West. Luckily, the real Foxy's in jail after a poker dispute with Bret, but what jail can hold the slippery Foxy ? At least the amorous Belle Starr's floored by Bret's charm, but the other legendary outlaws put Bret to the test.

8The Lass with the Poisonous Air

This episode is one of the those you can skip. The mostly inane plot involves Bart Maverick encountering a blonde beauty Linda (Joanna Cook Moore) who manages to entice Bart (using his typical bad judgment regarding women) into a clandestine affair. Meanwhile the stableman's young daughter Cathy (Carole Welles) is enamored by Bart (and his mare) and follows him to his daily countryside tryst with Linda. Cathy shows Bart that Linda is the wife of the soon to be Colorado Governor, and he also learns that she's being pursued by another suitor. Linda murders the suitor and frames Bart. Of course he outwits the forces of evil and give the mare to Cathy. Silly story poorly done.

9The Ghost Soldiers

08 Nov 1959

10Easy Mark

Bart discovers Cornelius Van Rennsellaer in the desert, a young man who appears to have an inordinate interest in a rare species of cactus. He's actually a railroad man, he says - his father runs the railroad - and he wants to take the cactus back to St. Louis for breeding.Corny learned poker at Harvard, and the education was expensive, but he appears to have learned poker well. He wins not only Bart's $300 stake, but his $1000 hideout money as well. That's all right. Corny offers him double the $1300 to impersonate him on the trip to St. Louis, so that he isn't bothered on the ride.That deal is too good to be true, of course, which is the gist of the story. It's fairly formulaic humor, but fun none the less. Corny has to be in St. Louis in the morning to vote his shares - and another investor wanting to take control of the railroad has sent representatives to ensure that he's delayed so his shares can't be voted,As a side plot, Edgar Buchanan plays an endearing old card sharp who tries to deal seconds, but doesn't do it too well. Bart realizes it, but willingly loses heavily, to avoid hurting the man's feelings - the checks he writes as Corny will never be honored by the bank because the handwriting will be wrong, so there's no harm, no foul.As always, this episode features a couple of fetching young actresses. Pippa Scott plays the sweet and innocent one, a niece of Buchanan's, who is too "ethical" to make a play for the railroad heir - so to no viewer's surprise, she decides she really likes that fellow in the baggage car who is fond of cactus. Nita Talbot, five years older, is the sophisticated and dangerous woman, a role she had already been playing for a decade, and would continue to play well into the 1990s. Although Pippa Scott stopped acting in 1984, she once again appeared before the camera 25 years later in the movie "Footprints"

11A Fellow's Brother

A fellow's got to kill the fellow who kills a fellow's brother. At least, that's the Code of the West. At first mistaken for the fellow who killed a fellow's brother, Bret sends the brother off in search of brother Bart as the alleged killer. When word comes back that Bart has been killed, the locals expect Bret to seek his own revenge. But Bret seems nonchalant about the news and has other plans. If only the idolizing Smoky would stay out of the way.

12Trooper Maverick

Involuntarily enlisted into the army, Bart becomes a spy for the local base commander trying to find out who is selling arms to the local Indians. But when the commander dies and Bart is caught with the arms dealers, he faces a court martial and potential execution for treason.

13Maverick Springs

In an effort to save her brother from the clutches of a scheming Melanie Blake, a wealthy rancher blackmails Bret into playing the role of a wealthy Texan to seduce Melanie into giving up the brother. But the brother has already been cheated out of his share of the ranch, so it is up to Bret with help from brother Bart to regain the asset through a land development ploy.

14The Goose-Drownder

A "goose-drownder" (rainstorm) perilously strands gambling rivals Gentleman Jack and Bart in a tiny roadhouse. A stagecoach has to pull in too, brimming with suspicious, hostile characters, especially a wounded, notorious highwayman, The Arapaho Kid, and a bedding salesman named Red Herring ! The Kid's blonde lady-friend, Stella Legendre (in French, "the sex star") once robbed Bart, but Bart forgives her. Does Bart still have a soft spot for Stella, or is he just trying to discern which ones are The Kid's gang?

15A Cure for Johnny Rain

Johnny Rain, a friend to all and beloved by all, has a problem. He does not particularly like whiskey and it doesn't agree with him, but his girlfriend insists that he should drink. While under the spell of whiskey, Johnny takes to stagecoach holdups. Bret figures out that it is Johnny behind the robberies, but can he figure out where the loot is hidden?

17Cruise of the Cynthia B.

10 Jan 1960

18Maverick and Juliet

Bret and Bart are hired by the feuding Carteret and Montgomery families to settle a longtime dispute by a poker competition. The families are unaware of Bret and Bart's relationship, but when they become suspicious the stakes are considerably raised for the brothers.

19The White Widow

24 Jan 1960

20Guatemala City

Finding himself in love with a woman who disappears, Bret follows her trail to Guatemala City. There he finds her, but she is living under another name. While trying to find out why, Bret must also deal with the adoration and shenanigans of a young street urchin.

21The People's Friend

Bart thwarts an assassination attempt on a local politician. With the wounded man unable to run for election, Bart is drafted to take his place on the ballot as a candidate for the Reform Party, a matter not looked on with favor by the competing politician behind the assassination attempt.

22A Flock of Trouble

14 Feb 1960

23The Iron Hand

21 Feb 1960

24The Resurrection of Joe November

28 Feb 1960

25The Misfortune Teller

Arriving in a town for the first time, Bret finds himself accused of swindling the town folk and killing its mayor. And his only chance of escaping the noose appears to rest with a scheming Melanie Blake and a superstitious lawyer new to the town.

26Greenbacks, Unlimited

Foursquare Farley has discovered a unique way of obtaining a bank loan - a secret tunnel to the Bank of Denver's vault. But with a safe cracker planning to break into the vault, Foursquare and Bret fear that the tunnel will be discovered and Foursquare blamed for the impending robbery. The result is a cat-and-mouse game of now you see it, now you don't.

1Bundle from Britain

18 Sep 1960

2Hadley's Hunters

Bart is framed for several crimes by crooked Sheriff Hadley and his deputy, who force him to take part in their racket--hunting down and killing innocent men, then claiming they're outlaws and collecting the reward. Bart turns bounty hunter in an effort to expose the corrupt lawmen's scheme and asks for help from several of his friends (all of whom are stars of other contemporary Warner Bros. TV western series, making cameo appearances).

3The Town That Wasn't There

Beau can't win for losing - sashays up to claim a worthless mine he won, then the whole town disappears. The no-longer Silver Hill stands at the mercy of the venal Wilber Shanks, a sanctimonious railroad land buyer, whose threat to divert his rail line far from Silver Hill forces its befuddled citizens to immediately take Shanks' mare to chat up a lonely bachelor sheep rancher who's desperate for some 2-legged company for a change.

4Arizona Black Maria

Left in the desert to die, Bart - actually just his fine mane - fascinates Red Feather who's on a walkabout of sorts. Captain/First Mate Jim of a passing prisoner wagon train saves Bart's scalp, plus the train stars luscious murderer Daphne, who's delighted with Bart as the hearty First Mate's Gilligan. But as the cruise of the Arizona Black Maria nears the penitentiary, wily crooks Dishonest Abe and Fingers Louie aren't so taken with pal Bart.

5Last Wire from Stop Gap

Beau & Bart fight to escape a black hole - where money and people enter, but can't leave! The cousins have to sleep sitting up in Stop Gap's only watering hole, after saving from robbers the treacherous Wembly, who promised them free, comfy hotel beds - but knew the inn was full-up. Wembly's suspiciously tight with the mining town's telegraph owner, son of a Colorado Senator. Why is the town too small to have a bank, as its population and wealth mysteriously expand to infinity - and beyond?

6Mano Nera

23 Oct 1960

7A Bullet for the Teacher

30 Oct 1960

8The Witch of Hound Dog

Bart howls like a hound dog when an alluring witch ravels him in great Smoky Mountain feud-in, fight-in and spell-in. Riding to Hound Dog, Tennessee to collect a debt from High Card Harris, Bart ignored a raven perched on a road sign, who the banshee insists is her dead Pappy. Bart shrugs off the witch's forebodings, then sees the Southern Hamlet disintegrate when he gives the raven-haired enchantress a lift in. Bart's own Pappy never told him there'd be days like this, much worse nights.

9Thunder from the North

Beau finds himself used as a scapegoat by two shopkeepers who killed the son of the chief in an effort to hide their swindle of local Indians. Captured by the Indians, Beau faces a death sentence only to be spared by the chief's daughter who claims Beau as her future husband. But Beau finds that his reprieve is only temporary until the honeymoon is over.

10The Maverick Line

In Bret's last episode, the Maverick brothers (Bret and Bart) find themselves the heirs to a stagecoach line. Thinking they have struck it rich, they find instead that the stagecoach line is broke. But the railroad is coming through and the stagecoach's right of way might yet provide their fortune, or so the brothers hope.

11Bolt from the Blue

27 Nov 1960

12Kiz

An eccentric woman hires Beau to be her bodyguard and claims she has been subject to repeated threats. But every time she claims there has been a threat, there is no evidence to support the allegation. The woman's family claims the alleged threats are part of her mental delusions and take steps to have a court declare her incompetent with control of the woman's fortune to be placed in the hands of others. Nobody believes the woman's claims. That is, nobody but Maverick.

13Dodge City or Bust

On his way to the bank to collect a gambling debt, Bart rescues a petulant young woman from a runaway horse. On returning to the bank, Bart and the woman find that the bank president has absconded with all the money, including the money to pay Bart's debt and all of the woman's money from sale of her land. The woman hires Bart to get her to Dodge City with the promise that her fiancé will pay him when they arrive. So they set out essentially penniless for Dodge city, only to later find that they are being tracked by a ruthless bounty hunter because they are now wanted for robbing the bank and killing the bank president.

14The Bold Fenian Men

Mistaken at a convention hotel to be Beau O'Maverick, Beau is recruited by the army to infiltrate a group of Irishmen in order to find out why they are massing near the Canadian border. But if he is discovered as a spy, it could mean facing a firing squad.

15Destination Devil's Flat

25 Dec 1960

16A State of Siege

Finding himself delayed in New Mexico, Bart decides to visit a recent acquaintance at a nearby hacienda. However, the hospitality he expected quickly turns dangerous when the hacienda is placed under siege by a group of other landowners who claim they have been double-crossed in a treasonous plot.

17Family Pride

To his chagrin, Beau repeatedly gets out-conned. First, on a bet on a stagecoach. Then, in a series of land deals. Trouble is, Beau isn't just losing his own money, but also that of his friend Jerry O'Brien. Even when he wins, Beau ends up losing and he fears that he has lost that special Maverick touch. Finally at the end, the reason becomes all too clear.

18The Cactus Switch

After falling prey to a con game involving a diamond necklace, Bart ends up in a jail cell with an old but treacherous outlaw. With the help of his son, the cell mate breaks out but leaves Bart behind. After being released, Bart plots to recover his loss from the con with help from the outlaw's son and friends. Bart plans to split the recovery with the son, but the elder outlaw has other plans.

19Dutchman's Gold

Looking for a way to break even after winning half of a worthless saloon, Beau provides a stake for a miner to return to his hidden goldmine with Beau and his female saloon partner. But the gold is cursed! A notorious outlaw wants to the goldmine for himself. And Indians want the gold located in their sacred burial grounds left alone.

20The Ice Man

29 Jan 1961

21Diamond Flush

05 Feb 1961

22Last Stop: Oblivion

After being run out of town, Bart finds himself on a stagecoach with a group of passengers headed to Oblivion, a transfer station and inn run by the Lyme family. While waiting for the next stagecoach to Denver, Bart discovers that some visitors (especially those carrying large sums of money) check in but they don't necessarily check out.

23Flood's Folly

19 Feb 1961

24Maverick at Law

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This really will NOT contain a spoiler! Bart Maverick (Jack Kelly) gets involved in helping Cyrus Murdock (Gage Clarke) return $5000 to the bank at which he is the teller. first having to "work around" ne'er do-wells McGaffy and Poe (Kem Dibbs and Dan White). His Scrooge-like bespectacled boss Cyrus Murdock (Tol Avery) becomes befuddled in the process, especially after his glasses are broken accidentally on purpose. Brent enlists the help of Clover McCoy (Dolores Donlon) for this caper. There are several twists here. Interesting Steiner score.

25Red Dog

05 Mar 1961

26The Deadly Image

12 Mar 1961

27Triple Indemnity

The czar of a frontier town has Bart thrashed to steal back his gambling losses, which angers even the boss' mother. Mom and Bart conspire to get Bart's money back, and teach the arrogant boss humility. As the scheme pressures the despot, he prays "Lord, give me patience, but give it to me now !" Bart enlists his dying pal, the gunfighting dentist from Philadelphia, Doc Holiday as insurance.

28The Forbidden City

Passing through Sunburst, Brent Maverick is yanked off a stagecoach for owning a deck of cards ! Brent's cell-mate was just released after 20 years in prison for murder, but is jailed for throwing a stone at a window, in this town which outlaws just about everything. Rubio tells Brent (Robert Colbert) he's back in Sunburst to clear himself and implicate the real killers. Rubio explains Sunburst: "the bride with the whitest veil, has the most to hide." The Sheriff leaves the keys hanging by the jail's open back door, allowing 3 masked men to drag off Rubio and kill him, as Brent watches. The Sheriff offers Brent the chance to vamoose, but the gambler stays to investigate - and to romance the mayor's daughter, whose never been kissed (it's against the law !). The mayor's daughter is played by Nina Shipman, whose grandmother, producer/director/screenwriter Nell Shipman, was the first full-frontal nude in the movie history.

29Substitute Gun

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Correction to the plot summary(this contains a minor spoiler but is necessary to correct the plot summary which is a little wrong): Bart repays a debt to the sheriff that saved his life by taking a job as a dealer in one of the two local saloons and attempting to stop the scheme of the other saloon owner and his confederate [you'll have to watch it to see who that is] to kill his rival (the saloon keeper for whom Bart is working) for a girl's affections.

30Benefit of the Doubt

09 Apr 1961

31The Devil's Necklace: Part 1

At a remote army post, Bart senses he can make some money by purchasing a wagonload of merchandise from a peddler who is anxious to sell. After Bart checks inside the wagon, he understand why the man was so quick to sell--it includes a shipment of unlawful liquor and a kidnapped Indian girl. When Bart and the peddler are later captured by the tribe, the man tricks the Indian chief into believing that he has a magic necklace, and trades it for his freedom. The chief, now believing himself to be impervious to harm, orders his warriors to attack the fort.

32The Devil's Necklace: Part 2

At a remote army post, Bart senses he can make some money by purchasing a wagonload of merchandise from a peddler who is anxious to sell. After Bart checks inside the wagon, he understand why the man was so quick to sell--it includes a shipment of unlawful liquor and a kidnapped Indian girl. When Bart and the peddler are later captured by the tribe, the man tricks the Indian chief into believing that he has a magic necklace, and trades it for his freedom. The chief, now believing himself to be impervious to harm, orders his warriors to attack the fort.

1Dade City Dodge

Bart tracks oily swindler Pearly Gates to recoup his winnings, so does the doll-face who helped Pearly dupe Bart. Bart just lost his puffy shirt, Marla lost her icy heart - when Gates jumped the altar with the ring SHE bought. Bart plans to sting Gates back in oh-so-crooked Dade City. Will Bart get honey-voiced Marla on the rebound or will she fleece him, and Pearly Gates too ?

2The Art Lovers

Mona Lisa rescues Bart from being an indentured servant, after Bart loses a high stakes poker game between nouveau riche art collectors. Oily backer Roger (Jack Cassidy) brought Bart into the game as a "Colonel," but when Bart loses, Roger denies the scheme, so Bart must work off the debt to the winner, a railroad tycoon. The other art collectors are big investors in the tycoon's latest rail project, and they are squeezing him dry, though the tycoon has a priceless ace he's reluctant to take out of the hole: he's acquired the recently-stolen Mona Lisa ! The miffed Roger's a very sore loser, so he enlists the Barbary Coast's fearsome Captain Bly versus Bart Maverick.

3The Golden Fleecing

08 Oct 1961

4Three Queens Full

Moose and Small Paul Wheelwright ? The Subrosa Ranch ? Hilarious "Bonanza" parody with Bart squirming in the middle between 3 naive, pa whipped brothers and their worldly mail-order brides from the Barbary Coast, after matchmaker Whittleseed (Willard Waterman) is murdered. Episode also has fine performances by Kasey Rogers, Jake Sheffield as the amorous Moose, and Jim Backus as the blustery pa of the Wheelwrights, who always stick together - and we even find out why they have to ! "Three Queens Full" is adorned with splendidly over-the-top music too.

5A Technical Error

Bart way-too-easily wins a bank in a poker game, because it's mysteriously missing a pile of money. The relieved loser advises Bart not to worry because "in banking, a little dignity can cover up a lot of ignorance." When the ex-owner instigates the small town's depositors into a bank run, the Sheriff (who resembles a dimwitted Marshal Matt Dillon) and his deputy (a Hoss Cartwright lookalike) can't wait to get their mitts on ignorant stranger Bart Maverick. Bart begs his gunslinging pal Doc Holiday to help him get flush any way possible, but the gallant dentist's very preoccupied when he meets a young beauty whose lonely hearts ad he answered - she's Bart's teller.

6Poker Face

These Maverick episodes certainly got worse as the series neared its end. This one is really one of the worst and most boring of the series that I have seen. Typical no action humdrum plot of Bart (Jack Kelly) and others on stagecoach being captured by Mexican outlaws and held for ransom. There is the typical attempt to save Bart by a doctor, Dr. Robespierre Jones (Richard Hale) who is a preacher, not a medical doctor who tries to save Bart's inner spirit since he knows it is bad. The subplot involves one of the captives (Nancy Hsueh) being romanced by one of the captors. She is already promised to another man of her ethnic group (arranged marriage) whom she has not seen since she was a child. She is 20 something in this show. This subplot ends with predictable results. (There are twists but they are not worth typing up or watching.) Results of the kidnapping and the romance are predictable by a six year old. Nothing memorable about this one. Do not waste your 47-48 minutes on this dog.

7Mr. Muldoon's Partner

15 Apr 1962

8Epitaph for a Gambler

In a poker game, Bart wins part ownership of a gambling casino owned by Diamond Jim Malone. What he doesn't know is that he's also taken on Lucky Matt Elkins, who's been blackmailing Diamond Jim and sees no reason why his payments have to stop just because the place has a new owner.

9The Maverick Report

Crusading newspaper publisher Bart ? The publisher Bart won the rag from is assassinated, and a corrupt U.S. Senator files a $100,000 libel suit against the Chronicle. Luckily, Bart's pal Doc Holiday is in town for a dentists' convention, and owes Bart $2000. When Doc brags "I have enough collateral to raise the dead !" Bart feels no compunction in selling ½ the headache to Doc. The senator and his sinister political boss are Ivy Leaguers, so the suave Philadelphia dentist/hired gun will come in handy.

10Marshal Maverick

Abilene's marshal is bumped off, Bart kills the murderer, but instead of thanks, he's threatened with jail for vagrancy unless he becomes marshal. At least it's only a temp job, because Wyatt Earp's en route to undertake the assignment. In the meantime Bart proposes a truce with the killer's gang, so he'll survive until Earp shows. Gambler Bart reasons "if we don't protect the lambs, who'll fleece the sheep ?" When Earp sashays in, he forces Bart to stay on as deputy. Is the legendary lawman losing his nerve or what ?

11The Troubled Heir

After Pearly Gates and Marla steal the money from a poker game to invest in a worthless mine, Bart unwittingly leads a wanted outlaw to them. Because they no longer have the money, the outlaw hatches a plan for Pearly Gates to turn the outlaw in for a reward with a promise to split the funds after the outlaw's gang break him out. But Bart learns that the outlaw plans to do away with Pearly instead of splitting the reward. In the meantime, Pearly has gambled away his supposed share of the reward with a promise to pay from his share of the reward. To save Pearly while also seeking to recover the funds that he lost, Bart hatches a plan for Pearly to pose as the heir to a large fortune with a promise to pay off Pearly's debts from the inheritance and secure the creditors by making them Pearly's heirs until the fortune arrives. Only one problem, the outlaw thinks that he can inherit all of the fictional fortune by doing away with Pearly.

12The Money Machine

Cousin Jackie brings Bart money from Pappy with instructions to pay off a debt. But before Bart can follow through, Jackie invests the money in a machine that prints cash. After realizing she has been swindled, Bart seeks to recoup the cash by turning the tables on the swindlers while also keeping Pappy's creditor at bay.

13One of Our Trains Is Missing

In the series finale, Bart finds himself on Diamond Jim Brady's bullet train with Doc Holliday and Modesty Blaine. Bart is racing to the state line to avoid a thrashing. Diamond Jim is racing to obtain a lucrative railroad contract and win a bet against a competitor. But Doc, Modesty, and the competitor have their own agendas. And everybody's plans are thrown for a loop when the train is moved off the main track by a conceited robber.